by Geneva Lee
“Don’t you dare, Jillian Nichols!”
She danced away from me, holding the phone out of reach while she pulled up Lillian’s number. I lunged for her, but Cassie blocked me.
“Let people help you,” she advised me.
I took a step back and thought about what she was really saying. Somehow I managed to keep my mouth shut as Jillian sweet talked Lillian into being my personal taxicab again.
“Done! She’s on her way!” Jillian said, waving the phone like it was a prize.
“She’s going to flip out when she finds out where I’m going,” I complained.
“I’m guessing she already knows,” Cassie said, dropping an arm around my shoulders.
“And how would she know that?”
“Because, much like my best friend Jessica Stone, Lillian Stone is not an idiot.”
Chapter 28
Lillian Stone might not be an idiot, but she wasn’t exactly a free ride either. Something she reminded me of as soon as I jumped into the passenger side of her Lexus. She was still dressed for the hearing in her tailored, black dress suit, but she’d added a blue tooth headset. Instead of getting a two-hour lecture about following Roman to Mexico, she spent most of the trip, taking phone calls and setting up appointments. When she finally pulled the headset off, she stared me down for at least a full minute, never once swerving, even as she drove.
“Do I need to repeat myself about not getting pregnant?” She’d given me that advice nearly six months ago on my first trip to Mexico.
“I’ve learned my lesson there,” I promised her. “I’m only going for moral support. Aba is like a mother to Roman, and she’ll expect me to be with him.”
“Did he ask you to come?” Lillian asked me.
I shook my head no. I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell her that he didn’t even know I was going.
“So why are you doing this?”
“I told you. For moral support,” I repeated.
“When my ex’s grandma died, I sent him a card—in the mail,” she said. “You’re running off to Mexico.”
I practically bit my tongue off trying to hold back what I wanted to say about that. The operative word in Lillian’s example was ex. I didn’t say it, but not because I wasn’t feeling bitchy or defensive. I didn’t say it because I had no business being judgmental about my sister’s relationship with her ex-boyfriend. Not at the moment. My own relationship was a mess. It might even be nonexistent. But I knew exactly where I needed to be.
“You don’t want me to go,” I said.
“It doesn’t really matter. I can’t stop you. If I wanted to stop you, I would never have agreed to pick you up and take you to the airport. You have to make your own decisions.”
I knew that. Just like I knew that jumping on a plane to be with my possibly ex-boyfriend when his Aba died sounded crazy. If I had heard someone else say they were doing this, I would have rolled my eyes. If it had been Jillian or Cassie, I would have tried to talk them out of it, but this made sense in a way I couldn’t explain.
“You’re a grown-up, Jess,” my sister continued. Her fingers drummed on the leather steering wheel. It was abnormally nervous of her. “I’m trying very hard to keep that in mind, because part of me wants to tell you no and send you to the corner.”
“But you can’t.”
“No, I can’t.” She took a deep breath. “Promise me one thing, okay?”
I nodded slowly, unsure what I was getting myself into and hoping she wasn’t going to lecture me on sex again.
“Listen to your heart.” Her voice cracked.
It was the last thing I expected her to make me promise. Lillian wasn’t exactly a follow-your-heart type unless you counted following your heart to a ‘not guilty’ verdict in the courtroom. Even then, practicing law didn’t seem to make her very happy. She was simply good at it.
“This is going to sound like the beginning of a sad romance novel,” she said, “but I gave up love for my career.”
“You’re only twenty-six,” I reminded her. She acted like she’d never have another chance. I didn’t believe that, but it seems she did.
She shrugged, her eyes now glued to the road as though she didn’t dare look at me. “Believe me, I threw away my one chance at love. At a family. If your heart tells you to go after Roman, then I want you to trust yourself. If you don’t, you’ll wind up working every waking moment of the day so you can cope with the loneliness.”
I couldn’t find the words to soothe her. She’d never revealed this part of her life to me. Comforting people was supposed to be my specialty. After all, I was the one with the bedside manner. When it came to my big sister, the thought of her not being in control of her life scared me too much. I had joked about Lillian being married to her work before, but I’d never considered why.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I managed to push the question out despite the awkward silence hanging between us in the car.
“You don’t need to hear my sad story,” she said, forcing a smile across tight lips. “Just don’t make the mistake I did. You care about Roman. The big sister in me wants to protect you from getting hurt, but as a woman I know what you might be giving up if you don’t go after him.”
Reaching over she grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Trust me on this.”
“I will,” I said. I’d pushed him away before. I thought it was for the best. Now I wasn’t so sure. “I don’t know if it will work out. I told myself I should move on, but…”
“Some guys you never get over,” she said. “If you get a second chance, take it.”
I readjusted my ponytail along with my perspective. If I really believed that Lillian might find love again, maybe I needed to open myself up to that possibility, too. “I’ve made a list of all the reasons I should stay away from him.”
“Your heart doesn’t care about pro and con lists.”
“I guess that’s why I’m going to Mexico.” It was a terrifying proposition. Roman had every right to reject me. I could get all the way to Puerto Vallarta and still have him do so. But life wasn’t giving me a second chance, I was taking one.
Lillian nodded and released my hand, returning to a perfect driving position. “Viva el amor.”
By the time we got to SeaTac in rush hour traffic, I only had forty-five minutes to get through security and make my flight. Thankfully Cassie had packed my carry-on with the precision only an OCD fashion nut could muster. Unzipping my bag I discovered neat stacks of clothing, a small selection of socks, two pairs of shoes, and my liquids separated into a TSA approved plastic baggy. The next time I ran off to a foreign country, she was definitely packing for me. Of course, with everything neatly separated and ready to go, my wait time in line was spent obsessing over how to reach Roman. I’d decided this was one instance where I didn’t want to surprise him. He needed to know I was on the way. But his phone went straight to voicemail, which meant he was probably in the air. I could only hope I got there in time. I hated the thought of him facing Aba’s death alone.
Behind me, people moved over to allow someone to pass them. It made me want to scream. We all needed to get through and someone thought they were important than the rest of us. I turned my head before the stranger could ask me to let him through and stood in the dead center of the queue.
“Excuse me…Jessica?”
If it was biologically possible for a heart to skip a beat without an underlying medical condition—which it wasn’t—mine did. I turned to face Roman, hoping that all the suave lines I’d been coming up with in my head while I waited wouldn’t fail me. They did. Instead of sounding calm and reasonable, I word-vomited all over him. “I know about Aba. I’m going to Mexico. My liquids are in a baggy and I have plenty of panties. I want to be there with you, and I’m sorry about…well, everything. I know you were thinking of me.”
“Jess—”
But I couldn’t stop myself. “And I’ll always choose you, too.”
Roman dropped his suitcase
and lifted me into his arms before I could process that I’d spilled my guts to him in front of a huge crowd of travelers.
“I love you, Jessica Stone,” he said, his arms wrapped tightly around my waist.
“I love you, too.” My feet kicked in the air with joy, an involuntary reaction to the most romantic gesture of my life. The beating of my heartbeat was full-on irregular as I lowered my mouth to his. I was vaguely aware of clapping and cheers from the onlookers around us, but they faded into the background when our lips met. Something clicked into place, something I didn’t even know was still broken. Happiness spread through me with such force that it physically hurt. How could I have thought I could live without him?
We were interrupted by a polite cough. Looking up, we realized the line had kept moving and we were backing up the entire checkpoint. No one seemed to mine. It was an airport miracle. Roman set me back on my feet and we gathered our things in a frenzy. This time I wasn’t stopped for trembling by the TSA. It seemed everyone had been privy to our reunion. They only gave us a bemused smile, although the man overseeing the X-ray machine winked at Roman.
“What flight are you on?” He checked my boarding pass over my shoulder. “Same flight.”
“S Gate then. We have to haul ass.” I was suddenly grateful Jillian had talked me into wearing Toms. My foot beat a nervous rhythm as Roman stopped to tie his sneakers.
“And you’re eloquent, too.” Roman pecked me on the mouth and grabbing my hand, we ran for it.
“Need…to do…more cardio,” I panted out as we ran.
“I can help you with that,” Roman said without so much as a gasp for air. If he wanted to whip me into shape, I wasn’t going to stop him. Not if we had the same cardiovascular activities in mind.
We stumbled into the south train as the doors were sliding shut. I’d never been so thankful for a means of transit before. Roman held onto a pole, wrapping his free arm around my waist and pulling me close to him.
“Why are you here?” It wasn’t really the question he was asking. I’d already answered that.
“Because this is where I belong,” I whispered.
“Thank god, you realized that,” he said in a low voice.
I pressed closer to him, turning my face up to his, desperate to feel the light brush of his stubble on my cheek and to taste him on my lips, but the train jerked to a stop. We broke apart and continued our frantic dash. By merciful chance, the gate was on the near end of the terminal. I skidded to a stop next to Roman just as he began to laugh.
“Delayed,” he said. “We have at least twenty minutes.”
My eyes flew up to the monitor. He was right. “I ran for nothing.”
“And survived,” he said.
“I totally deserve a drink.”
“You deserve a lot more than that and I’m going to make sure you always get what you deserve from now on.”
I reached out and hooked my fingers over the waist of his jeans, drawing him to me. “That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s not,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “It’s a promise.”
Chapter 29
The flight was overbooked, so we spent it in separate aisles. I tried to distract myself with the magazines that Cassie had thoughtfully thrown in my purse, but mostly I obsessed over Roman: how he was feeling, whether or not he really wanted me here with him, when I would get to be alone with him. Inevitably, my thoughts turned to guilt for being more focused on our relationship than on Aba’s condition.
But all my doubts and insecurities vanished when I found him waiting for me at the top of the jet bridge. His face said everything I needed to hear to calm my fears. We were in this together, and we both finally realized it.
There was no time to stop at the hotel that Cassie had arranged for me. Instead, we headed straight to the hospital. Roman hadn’t received any more messages from the doctor, so we could only hope she hadn’t taken a turn for the worse. The halls of the hospital squeaked against our shoes, and there was a faint smell of bleach in the air. Most people felt uncomfortable in hospitals, but not me. I belonged here. Still, for the first time since my Dad died I felt nervous as a man in a white lab coat crossed to greet us at the door to Aba’s room. Thanks to my studiousness I understood bits of what he was saying, including the fact that visitors to this unit were limited to family only.
I pulled my hand from Roman’s, giving him a reassuring smile. He needed to be with Aba right now, and I wouldn’t go far. “I’ll wait outside. Right here.”
Roman shook his head, grabbing my hand and clasping it tightly as he said something quickly to the doctor. The other man nodded in understanding and motioned for us to enter the room. I didn’t have time to ask him what he’d said, and it hardly seemed important when I spotted Aba’s frail form in the hospital bed.
“He says she’s in critical condition. The damage to her heart was very severe,” he said in a whisper. “She’s not maintaining consciousness well.”
I didn’t need him to explain what that meant. We were lucky we got here when we did, because she wouldn’t last much longer. Roman dropped softly onto the bed, took her hand, and waited. In that moment I would have given anything for her to wake up, because the thought of him not getting to say goodbye was more than I could bear.
“Aba,” he said, but there was no response.
I placed a hand on his shoulder but said nothing.
“You have to wake up,” he said, his voice cracking. “Jess is here. We’re here together.”
Tears sat in a lump in my throat, and I tried to swallow against them. I’d only met Aba a few months ago, but she raised the man I loved and I wanted to know her longer.
“You were right,” Roman continued, “about her and me. You can’t walk away from love. I shouldn’t have tried to, but I don’t want you to worry. I won’t lose her again.”
He reached up and wove his fingers through mine, and it was there. The electric charge I always felt at his touch, but it had shifted. It had evolved into more—something deeper and harder to explain. It penetrated past my skin, into my blood and made a home in my bones. I had never felt anything like it before and with it came a sense of unshakable certainty—a pure, undeniable moment of clarity. This was it.
Roman was the one.
It was somehow truer than simply being in love, and the realization sucked the air from my chest.
“Bien.” Aba’s blessing was thick and cottony, and although she didn’t open her eyes, I rushed from Roman’s side to find her a cup of water.
The pitcher in her room was empty, so I caught Roman’s eye and pointed to it. He nodded and leaned in to speak with his grandmother.
The hallway was deserted, so I took my chances, hoping I would find a nurse or a bathroom or even a garden hose at this point. Anything to help Roman have more time with Aba. Rounding the corner, I knocked into a nurse. The pitcher fell to the floor and she bent to pick it up, popping back onto her feet and holding it out to me.
“Agua?” I asked, pointing to it.
“Para?”
“Room one twenty-seven.” I held up a hand to correct myself. “No, ciento veintisiete.” I’d probably butchered that but I was hoping my recent flirtations with a Spanish language learning app would pay off.
She nodded and took it from me. I tiptoed back to Aba’s room, but hesitated at the door. Roman and Aba were speaking in low voices while he stroked her hand. As much as I wanted to be there for him right now, I also wanted to give him privacy. I would be with him but I didn’t want to impose on the time he had left with her.
“Señora Markson?”
I turned to discover the nurse was speaking to me. She offered me the pitcher.
“Oh, no, I’m not…” I blushed at her assumption.
The nurse looked confused as I took the pitcher from her. “Tù eres la esposa de el?”
Esposa. I had never learned that word but it seemed pretty obvious.
Before I could respond, an alarm
sounded down the hall and she dashed off, leaving me with a pitcher full of water and a red face. I guess it was natural to assume I was Roman’s wife since I was here at his side, but part of me was relieved that Roman hadn’t heard it. Not while we were on the shaky legs of our newborn reconciliation.
When I took the pitcher inside, Aba was awake and she smiled at me, even now she lit up the room. It was hard to imagine she was in such bad shape, but heart conditions were tricky like that. I couldn’t help but hold out hope that she might get better.
“I’m happy you’ve come,” she said to me as I hovered next to Roman. As soon as she said it, she began speaking Spanish again too quickly for my minimal knowledge of the language. Roman nodded, a grin breaking over his face as she spoke my name, one of the few words I caught. Reaching out he tugged me down beside him and I sat on the edge of the bed, balancing carefully so I wouldn’t fall off or disturb her. Everything about this moment was awkward and uncomfortable and painful, except that I was next to him and that meant that no matter what, it was going to be okay.
When we reached the hotel that night, exhaustion had set in, making us equal turns somber and inappropriately giddy. This time Cassie had snagged us a reasonable room in the main hotel that we’d stayed at in December. Ducking into the bathroom I took the opportunity to comb my hair, which was a tangled mess from the flight, and brush my teeth. Despite the travel and emotional roller coaster I’d endured today, I was wide awake. My body was nearly numb from weariness, but my brain was on full alert. I wasn’t certain if I was waiting for the other shoe to drop or if I was simply overwhelmed by everything that had transpired in a matter of hours.
When Roman took over the bathroom, I stepped onto the balcony for fresh air. Our room might be average, but the view wasn’t. I couldn’t step onto the sandy beach from up here, but the salty scent of ocean water perfumed the air. The smell reminded me of splashing with Roman in the water. We’d made love in that ocean, holding back promises we knew we couldn’t make. I was ready to make them now.
The door slid open behind me, and then he was there, the warmth of his presence augmenting the calm I found in our ocean view.